U.S. Tries to Avert Mideast Impasse

By

Charles Levinson

Updated Oct. 3, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

JERUSALEM—Peace talks appeared on the edge of collapse amid a standoff over building Jewish settlements, but some officials called the crisis an example of the brinksmanship characteristic of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and suggested a compromise could still be at hand.

On Sunday, U.S. officials continued feverish shuttle diplomacy to broker a last-minute deal to salvage the peace process. White House peace envoy George Mitchell met in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and then flew in the afternoon to Amman for meetings with Jordan's King Abdullah.

Mr. Mitchell sounded upbeat in public statements in Cairo.

"Despite the differences, both the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority asked us to continue these discussions and efforts," he said, according to the Associated Press. "They both want to continue those negotiations."

Housing under construction Sunday in a West Bank Jewish settlement.
European Pressphoto Agency

The current crisis emerged after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend 10-month-old restrictions on Jewish settlement building after they expired last week. On Saturday, the Palestinian leadership declared it was pulling out of negotiations unless Mr. Netanyahu reversed course.

The Palestinians delayed a final decision on continuing negotiations until after an Arab League meeting on the issue scheduled to take place in Libya on Saturday. The Arab League's endorsement is key to the talks' continuation.

The U.S. has successfully pushed for the meeting, originally scheduled for Wednesday, to be delayed twice now, giving Mr. Mitchell and his team an expanded window to negotiate a breakthrough between the two parties, according to officials briefed on the diplomacy.

Tensions escalate in the Middle East as Palestinian President Abbas meets with Jordan's King over stalled peace talks. Video courtesy of Reuters.

Mr. Netanyahu, who leads a right-of-center, mostly pro-settlement coalition, has publicly rejected any extension of a partial settlement freeze. On Sunday, however, there were hints the Israeli position may be softening. The country's two top daily newspapers cited unnamed aides to the prime minister saying Mr. Netanyahu would take a package of U.S. enticements to other government ministers in an attempt to gain their support for a two-month extension to the freeze. A spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu declined to comment on the reports.

The U.S. enticements include security guarantees to Israel, a guarantee that Washington won't seek a further extension of the settlement freeze, and a promise to veto U.N. security-council resolutions harmful to Israel during a one-year negotiating window. The U.S. and Israel have said they hoped to have a deal within a year.

The U.S. package was first reported on Thursday by David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and coauthor of a book on Iran with White House Mideast adviser Dennis Ross. Administration officials later confirmed most of Mr. Makovsky's account. Palestinian officials have criticized the U.S. package, saying it rewards Israel for illegally settling Palestinian land.

Several veteran peace negotiators said the current theatrics have long been a fixture of the negotiations, aimed at squeezing the largest possible concessions from the other side and minimizing domestic fallout by showing hard-liners at home that their leader held out until the last moment.

"Netanyahu needs to show that extending the freeze is a very, very difficult thing to do and it's going to cost him a lot, and if its going to cost him he will need some compensation," said a senior Israeli official.

One notorious example of such brinkmanship came after then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat negotiated the 1994 agreement that created the Palestinian Authority and allowed the return of the exiled Palestinian leadership to the West Bank. At the signing ceremony in Cairo, on live television, with Egyptian President Mubarak, then-U.S. Secretary State of Warren Christopher and Mr. Rabin all onstage, Mr. Arafat suddenly refused to sign, holding out for one last concession from Mr. Rabin.

"In this dance, any deal will always come at the very last minute," says
Gadi Baltiansky,
a member of the Israeli negotiating team that participated in the Camp David peace talks in 2000. "That's how things work in this part of the world. Politicians, and particularly politicians in the Middle East, postpone decisions until they have no other choice but to make a decision."

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, tensions flared as Israeli border police shot and killed a Palestinian who police officials alleged tried to wrestle a police officer's gun away from him after sneaking across the security barrier. Israeli human-rights groups said witnesses refuted that claim. A police shooting last month sparked widespread riots in Jerusalem.

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